It’s late o’clock in Britainland, so forgive this being a shortie of a post but… well, as the headline says, really. The lovely Rayman Origins, which made all the right people cheer over on console, is due on PC on March 29, but a demo unexpectedly arrived earlier today. Go get (the demo link is over on the right of the page that links to), and hopefully understand why John and I are absolutely delighted to see this mega-cheerful, visually inventive platformer find its way to PC.

Yeah. Wonder how much Ubisoft paid them for that? Doesn’t actually work though… It informs me it needs to convert the game content to a different format, which needs time and a Net connection. Then fails because I have no subscription.

Edit: Can’t install it from the link, or the Store page, or remove it from my game list. Doesn’t appear to have actually downloaded anything though.

Yeah, doesn’t actually seem to be that helpful, as it is now downloading a whole load of stuff and not letting me do anything with Steam whilst it is doing it.

Edit: Okay, think Steam must have crashed after the download was complete. Crashing out of it and restarting seems to have worked, as it is now doing the usual DirectX install, rather than strange reconfiguring files .

Restarting steam i guess, I want to play it so bad :D
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Okay so, I couldn’t download it by using toe ‘download demo’ button. But by clicking ‘play’ as it’s already in my library, then it converts files and validates them (which involves downloading everything for the first time)

@Unaco
Right, it obviously must be that evil Ubisoft, not Valve fucking something up…
According to a Valve employee on Steam forums, it’s a bug. Yes, Steam has bugs, imagine that, it’s not perfect and there’s no “Ubi paid them!!!!” conspiracy.

@Unaco
My pleasure.
I mean, you aren’t the only one. The Ubisoft hate is so ridiculous people are already blaming that company for the demo appearing on their games lists. I don’t know what to say. That’s Internet for you, I guess.

While I generally never agree with your pro-Ubisoft comments, this time I find it amusing that people are blaming Ubisoft for it having been added automatically to our libraries. Way to jump to conclusions, people.

Yep, despite the incredible things I’ve heard about this underappreciated gem there is absolutely no way I will put my faith in an Ubisoft game by preordering it. I’ll wait for 50 people to confirm that the DRM is either nonexistent or reasonable and then I’ll consider buying it.

Last I heard the PC version will be DRM-free, but only if you buy retail. If you buy it from Ubisoft, there will be a first-time activation, might be the same for Steam (other than the Steam DRM of course).

So I guess that the Steam version will not have another layer of DRM over Steam, but others are protected with TAGES. Which is most annoying if I want to have the game without TAGES, but at 2/3 of the Steam price. (20 gbp on Gamersgate which are roughly equal to 20 euros with the lifetime IGN discount, versus 30 euros on Steam).

If the game does not have any intrusive DRM nor UPlay I will be getting this and sending a little message to Ubisoft telling them that they need to continue on this path. This will be the first Ubisoft game I have bought in years.

Rayman: Origins? Does this mean the game is set in a dark fantasy world, where everybody is racist towards people with blonde fringes? And that people often have prolonged conversations while thoroughly splattered with blood?

Before anyone starts to worry, there’s nothing in the game that wouldn’t be out of place in a French saturday morning cartoon. Maybe not an American one, but the idea of women having boobs seems to scare them.

Played the first two levels and loved what I have seen so far. Think I will definitely be putting a purchase in for this, just for the look alone, even if it didn’t play that good. Screenshots really do not do this justice.

Only complaint so far is that it hasn’t picked up my pad and I’m left playing it with the keyboard. I imagine it will only work with 360 pad. Having said that, didn’t really have any problems playing it on the keyboard.

I had seen some screenshots and videos of this game, but I also had no idea how beautiful the game was until I actually played it. I can’t even be mad at Steam for sticking this in my library and making the download process all fucked up, I probably wouldn’t have played it otherwise.

I always feel uncomfortable with these games that are obviously riffing on other indie’s work. For example, there are some games on PSP and iOS that are totally made from Deathworm and Hammerfight, which I would love to have on a portable system. On the other hand, they are profiting off another authors work, and likely passing off the games as their own and not giving a cent of cash, or any credit to the original authors.

Sure, that’s how the industry works, and has worked forever. Its makes me a bit more queasy however, since I’m more aware of the originals.

Okay, these controls hardly make any sense and whoever bound ‘Space’ to the action that says ‘Enter’ should be smacked upside the head, but goddang it, this game has enough funloving spirit and personality to power an entire planet of amusement parks. I’d have a spanking good time just watching this being played.

It is absolutely gorgeous. And wonderful. And FUN!!! It genuinely bought a tear to my eye with it’s sheer lovability – I think there was a mixture nostalgia for old gaming style and just being unable to fully cope with the sheer amount of joy in every pixel.

I know it’s Ubisoft and I’m not a fan of their whole attitude to PC gaming, but, honestly, if you don’t buy this game you want shooting. Convincing publishers that there is a market for old school fun 2d platformers made with love and humour on the PC can only be good for everyone, unless you are looking forward to Big Shooty Man Shoots Stuff 5 (now with more ‘splodes)…

Too bad it’s Ubisoft here. I’m on a boicott of everything Ubi until they drop their stupid ass DRM schemes. IF, and only IF, Ubisoft adds nothing besides the use of Steam to this game, they I think I’ll have to pass, even I’m excited about it.

Top class PC Gamers don’t discriminate. They know all games are equal. Until they play em. They they become the work of the gods or scum of the earth.

On topic, I’d say this has a different rhythm than the classic Sonic games. Its a bit between Super Meat Boy and old school Sonic, specially near the end. Ya know, when you get the power to run up walls.

It takes it’s rhythm from Sonic tho – the idea that there’s a superfast route through every level OR you can faff about trying to collect everything…

It’s a tease of a game for sure – you look at it and think it’s a regular platformer but it’s got a bit of depth to it. It’s not SMB tho – it’s MUCH MUCH BETTER than SMB, there’s some ‘game’ in there, not just a stream of frustration.

To me both Ubisoft and console origin is no sale. I’ve read the article only because I wanted to know whether that marketing gimmick is true. Why? The game (or demo) didn’t show on my list. So apparently Steam chooses its customers carefully.

Wow, demo was great, short and sweet. It runs on my ancient integrated videocard with a bit of slowdown when there are many enemies (geforce 6150le). Keyboard controls are tight, I haven’t tested it with a gamepad, yet.

Agreed, short and sweet, I just have to decide whether the Steam version or the PC download from the UbiShop will do the trick. Probably the latter, if the DRM-free quality is confirmed. But really, the game reminded me playing Super Mario World when I was 7 years old, with all the charm I felt that time. Insta-buy, there you go!

One thing though: I played the demo with a friend using a Logitech Dual Action gamepad (DInput mode, so didn’t act as a 360 controller) and it worked flawlessly!

It’s not appearing in my games library – hence my commenting on it appearing in other people’s. I’m just referring to the normal ‘download demo’ button on the game page, which still isn’t working for me.

Might see if there’s anywhere else to download it. But not directly from Ubisoft. I don’t even want to add to their website stats.

Wow, thanks Ubisoft! The demo automatically got put into my library, it won’t download, just stays on download paused, and I restart Steam and the demo gets taken off my library, and I still can’t download it! Once again Ubisoft, thank you so much.

Jesus christ dude it was late at night! Valve didn’t even cross my mind, I saw a shitload of Ubisoft bashing and thought that they had something to do with it. Sorry! I hate Ubi-bashing and Valve fanboyism as well!

It’s fun alright, I’m buying. And I would be playing the demo if it hadn’t disappeared from my steam games list, hmmm, it’s still in my steam folder and it works, nice use of the Wilhelm Scream on the second level there.